Vasili Nikitich Mitrokhin (Russian: Василий Никитич Митрохин) (March 3, 1922–January 23, 2004) was a Major and senior archivist for the Soviet Union's foreign intelligence service, the First Chief Directorate of the KGB, and co-author with Christopher Andrew of The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West, a massive account of Soviet intelligence operations based on copies of material from the archive. Work on the second volume, The Mitrokhin Archive II: The KGB in the World, was completed by Andrew in 2005 after Mitrokhin's death. March 3 is the 62nd day of the year in the Gregorian Calendar (63rd in leap years). ... 1922 (MCMXXII) was a common year starting on Sunday (see link for calendar). ... January 23 is the 23rd day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Major is a military rank denoting an officer of mid-level command status. ... An archivist is someone who collects, organizes, preserves, and maintains control over a wide range of important information. ... This article is actively undergoing a major edit for a short while. ... The KGB emblem and motto: The sword and the shield KGB (transliteration of КГБ) is the Russian-language abbreviation for State Security Committee, (Russian: ; Komitet Gosudarstvennoy Bezopasnosti). ... Christopher Maurice Andrew (born 23 July 1941) is a British historian and professor with a special interest in international relations and in particular the history of intelligence services. ...

Mitrokin was born in Yurasovo, in Central Russia, Ryazan, Russian Soviet Federated Socialist Republic. After leaving school, he entered artillery school, then attended university in Kazakh SSR, graduating in History and Law. Towards the end of the Second World War, he took a job in the military procurator's office at Kharkov in the Ukrainian SSR. He entered the MGB as a foreign intelligence officer in 1948. His first foreign posting was in 1952. Central Federal District is one of the seven Russia. ... Ryazan (Ряза́нь) is a city in Central Russia federal district, the administrative center of the Ryazan Oblast. ... State motto: Пролетарии всех стран, соединяйтесь! (Workers of the world, unite!) Official language None (Russian in practice) Capital Moscow Chairman of the Supreme Council Boris Yeltsin Area  - Total  - % water Ranked 1st in former Soviet Union 17,075,200 km² 0,5% Population  - Total (1989)  - Density Ranked 1st in the former... State motto: Барлық елдердің пролетарлары, бірігіңдер! Official language None. ... Mushroom cloud from the nuclear explosion over Nagasaki rising 18 km into the air. ... Kharkov (rus: Ха́рьков) or Kharkiv (ukr: Ха́рків) is the second largest city in Ukraine, a center of Kharkivska oblast. It is situated in the northeast of the country and has a population of two million. ... State motto: Пролетарі всіх країн, єднайтеся! Official language None. ... The Ministry of State Security (MGB) ( Russian: Министерство государственной безопасности (Ministerstvo Gosudarstvennoi Bezopasnosti)) was the name of the Soviet secret police agency from 1946 to 1953. ...

During the 1950s he served on various undercover assignments overseas. In 1956, for example, he accompanied the Soviet team to the Olympic games in Australia. But later that year, after he had apparently mishandled an operational assignment, he was moved from operational duties to the archives of the KGB's First Chief Directorate, and told he would never work in the field again. Mitrokhin sometimes dated the beginnings of his disillusionment to Khrushchev's famous speech to the Communist Party congress denouncing Stalin, though it seems he may have been harbouring doubts for some time before that. For years he had listened to broadcasts on the BBC and Voice of America, noting the gulf between their reports and party propaganda. For months before the Olympic Games, runners relay the Olympic Flame from Olympia to the opening ceremony. ... On the Personality Cult and its Consequences , commonly known as the Secret Speech was a report to the 20th Party Congress on February 25, 1956 by Soviet leader Nikita Khrushchev, in which he denounced the actions of Joseph Stalin. ... In modern usage, a communist party is a political party which promotes communism, the sociopolitical philosophy based on Marxism. ... Iosif (usually anglicized as Joseph) Vissarionovich Stalin (Russian: Иосиф Виссарионович Сталин), original name Ioseb Jughashvili (Georgian: იოსებ ჯუღაშვილი; see Other names section) (December 21, 1879[1] – March 5, 1953) was a Bolshevik revolutionary and leader of the Soviet Union. ... The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is the largest publicly-funded radio and television broadcasting corporation of the United Kingdom (see British television) and the world. ... The Voice of America (VOA) is the official international broadcasting service of the Government of the United States. ... U.S. propaganda poster, depicting a Nazi stabbing a Bible. ...

Yet when he began looking into the archives, he claimed to have been shocked by what he discovered about the KGB's systematic repression of the Russian people. "I could not believe such evil," he recalled. "It was all planned, prepared, thought out in advance. It was a terrible shock when I read things." Wikipedia does not yet have an article with this exact name. ...

Between 1972 and 1984 he supervised the move of the archive of the First Chief Directorate from the Lubyanka to the new KGB headquarters at Yasenevo. While doing so he made copies or stole documents from the archive. He retired in 1985. Lubyanka may refer to Lubyanka Square, Moscow Lubyanka prison, Moscow Lubyanka -- an informal reference to the former headquarters of KGB, at Lubyanka Square, Moscow. ... edit Yasenevo (Russian: ) is a station on the Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya Line of the Moscow Metro. ...

In 1992 he traveled to Latvia with copies of material from the archive and walked into the British embassy. CIA officers there didn't consider him to be credible, concluding that the copied documents could be faked. He then went to the British embassy and the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6) officer there saw his potential and following consultations with London accepted him as an agent. Operations followed to retrieve the 25,000 pages of files hidden in his house, covering operations from as far back as the 1930s. He and his family were then exfiltrated to Britain. A diplomatic mission is a group of people from one nation state present in another nation state to represent the sending state in the receiving State. ... The CIAs seal features an eagle atop a sixteen-point compass. ... The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), more commonly known as MI6 (originally Military Intelligence Section 6), or the Secret Service or simply Six, is the United Kingdoms external security agency. ... This article is about the British city. ...

Richard Tomlinson, the MI6 officer imprisoned in 1997 for attempting to publish a book about his career, was one of those involved in retrieving the documents from empty milk cartons hidden under the floor of the dacha. Richard Tomlinson was a MI6 officer who was famously imprisoned in 1997 for breaking the 1989 Official Secrets Act, by attempting to publish a book detailing his career. ... 1997 (MCMXCVII in Roman) is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A carton is a type of packaging, generally for food. ... Dacha of Boris Pasternak in Peredelkino. ...

Historians have raised questions about Mitrokhin's material, as his claims about the Soviet Union are unverifiable. According to the American Historical Review (106:2, April 2001): "Mitrokhin was a self-described loner with increasingly anti-Soviet views . . . Maybe such a potentially dubious type (in KGB terms) really was able freely to transcribe thousands of documents, smuggle them out of KGB premises, hide them under his bed, transfer them to his country house, bury them in milk cans, make multiple visits to British embassies abroad, escape to Britain, and then return to Russia, and carry the voluminous work to the west, all without detection by the KGB . . . It may all be true. But how do we know?."

Results

Among other revelations, the papers disclosed that more than half of Soviet weapons were based on designs stolen from the United States; that the KGB had tapped the telephones of American officials such as Henry Kissinger and had spies in almost all the country's big defence contractors. In France, at least 35 senior politicians were shown to have worked for the KGB during the Cold War. In Germany, the KGB was shown to have infiltrated all the major political parties, the judiciary and the police. Henry Kissinger circa 1970s. ... The Cold War was the protracted geopolitical, ideological, and economic struggle that emerged after World War II between the global superpowers of the Soviet Union and the United States, supported by their alliance partners. ...

Spies exposed as a result of the defection include:

• Melita Norwood
• John Symonds (code-named Scot)
• Tom Driberg (code-named Driberg), a former elected Labour Party Member of Parliament who had visited Moscow with Guy Burgess.
• Raymond Fletcher (code-named Peter), a former elected Labour Party Member of Parliament.
  • Robert Lipka, former clerk at the US NSA. Lipka denied his guilt until the very last moments before his trial was to begin when it was revealed that the prime witness against him was a former KGB archivist with proof of his relation with the KGB.
  • Claude Estier, former leader of the French Socialist Party and confidant of former president François Mitterrand

KGB operations revealed in the files include: Melita Norwood, née Sirnis, (25 March 1912 – 2 June 2005) was a British civil servant who, for a period of about 40 years following her recruitment in 1937, supplied the KGB (and its predecessor agencies) with state secrets from her job at the British Non-Ferrous Metals Research Association... Thomas Edward Neil Driberg, Baron Bradwell (May 22, 1905—August 12, 1976) was a British journalist and politician who was an influential member on the left of the UK Labour party from the 1940s to the 1970s. ... The Labour Party is a centre-left or social democratic political party in Britain (see British politics), and one of the United Kingdoms three main political parties. ... A Member of Parliament, or MP, is a representative elected by the voters of an electoral district to a parliament; in the Westminster system, specifically to the lower house. ... Moscow (Russian: Москва́, Moskva, IPA: ) is the capital of Russia and the countrys principal political, economic, financial, educational and transportation center, located on the river Moskva. ... Guy Francis De Moncy Burgess (1911-1963) was a flamboyant, homosexual, British-born intelligence officer and double agent who worked for the Soviet Union, was part of the Cambridge Five spy ring within the MI5. ... The Labour Party has since its formation in the early 20th century been the principal left wing political party of the United Kingdom (see British politics). ... Motto: E pluribus unum (1789 to 1956) (Latin: Out of Many, One) In God We Trust (1956 to present) Anthem: The Star-Spangled Banner Capital Washington, D.C. Largest city New York City Official language(s) None at federal level; English de facto Government • President • Vice President Federal republic George... NSA seal The National Security Agency / Central Security Service (NSA/CSS) is believed to be the largest United States government intelligence agency. ... (help· info) (October 26, 1916 – January 8, 1996) was a French politician. ...

• attempts to incite racial hatred in the U.S.
• bugging MI6 stations in the Middle East
• bugging Henry Kissinger when he was serving as US Secretary of State.
• leaked documents from defence contractors including Boeing, Fairchild, General Dynamics, IBM and Lockheed Corporation, providing the Russians with detailed information about the Trident, Peacekeeper and Tomahawk cruise missiles.
• Extensive penetration of the U.S. State Department starting in the 1950's to an extent far greater than the accusations of U.S. Senator Joseph McCarthy.

Accused but unconfirmed were: The Secret Intelligence Service (SIS), more commonly known as MI6 (originally Military Intelligence Section 6), or the Secret Service, is the United Kingdom external security agency. ... A map showing countries commonly considered to be part of the Middle East The Middle East is a region comprising the lands around the southern and eastern parts of the Mediterranean Sea, a territory that extends from the eastern Mediterranean Sea to the Persian Gulf. ... Henry Kissinger circa 1970s. ... In several countries, Secretary of State is a senior government position. ... The Boeing Company (NYSE: BA)(TYO: 7661 ) is the worlds largest aircraft manufacturer, headquartered in Chicago, Illinois, with its largest production facilities in Everett, Washington, about 30 miles north of Seattle, Washington. ... 1944 Fairchild Argus III (G-BCBH) Fairchild were an aerospace manufacturing company based at various times in Farmingdale, New York, Hagerstown, Maryland, and San Antonio, Texas. ... General Dynamics NYSE: GD is a defense conglomerate formed by mergers and divestitures, and as of 2005 it is the sixth largest defense contractor in the world [2]. The company has changed markedly in the post-Cold War era of defense consolidation. ... International Business Machines Corporation (IBM, or colloquially, Big Blue; NYSE: IBM) is a computer technology firm headquartered in Armonk, NY, USA. The company, which was founded in 1888 and incorporated June 15, 1911, manufactures and sells computer hardware, software, infrastructure services, hosting services, and consulting services. ... The Lockheed SR-71 was remarkably advanced for its time and remains unsurpassed in many areas of performance. ... The Trident missile, named after the trident, is an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) which is armed with nuclear warheads and is launched from submarines (SSBNs), making it a SLBM. The Trident was built in two variants: the I (C4) UGM-96A and II (D5) UGM-133A. The C4 and D5... Test launch of Peacekeeper ICBM from Vandenberg AFB, CA (USAF) The LG-118A Peacekeeper is a land-based ICBM deployed by the United States starting in 1986. ... A Tomahawk cruise missile The Tomahawk Land Attack Missile (TLAM) is a long-range, all-weather, subsonic cruise missile with stubby wings. ... Joseph Raymond McCarthy Joseph Raymond McCarthy (November 14, 1908 – May 2, 1957) was a Republican Senator from the state of Wisconsin from 1947 to 1957. ...

• Richard Clements, ally of Neil Kinnock, former leader of the British Labour Party, who denied the allegation, saying that it was an over-inflated claim and "complete nonsense".

• The report of the center-right party member of an Italian parliamentary commission has concluded that the former Soviet Union was behind the 1981 assassination attempt on the late Pope John Paul II

Richard Clements is Richard Clements the UK journalist Richard Clements the Australian painter ... Rt. ... Pope John Paul II (Latin: ), born Karol Józef Wojtyła [1] (May 18, 1920 – April 2, 2005) reigned as pope of the Roman Catholic Church for almost 27 years, from October 16, 1978 until his death, making his the second-longest pontificate. ...

Books

• Vasili Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and the Secret History of the KGB, Basic Books (1999), hardcover, ISBN 0465003109; trade paperback (September, 2000), ISBN 0465003125
• Vasili Mitrokhin and Christopher Andrew, The World Was Going Our Way: The KGB and the Battle for the Third World, Basic Books (2005) hardcover, 677 pages ISBN 0476003117
• Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Mitrokhin Archive: The KGB in Europe and the West, Gardners Books (2000), ISBN 0140284877

External links

• Summary of press coverage

Sources

• The UK Telegraph, February 2, 2004